Journey Home
by NevadaRose
Summary: Thanks to SingerMe for letting me in on this challenge. Here's my take on what the last episode of Season 20 should have been if the Powers That Be knew it was the end of the story and wanted to wind things up right. This is fairly short and you get a chapter a day. Comments on what you think is going to happen next are especially welcome. Yes, that means YOU, GunShy!
1. Chapter 1

Kitty sat in the big chair next to the fireplace rocking the baby in her arms. It was her last night with the child, and it made her a little wistful. She stroked the tiny cheek and the child turned his face towards her bosom – rooting for something that wasn't there. Kitty sighed and stood to take the boy upstairs.

She woke the next morning to bright sun and the smell of coffee. She washed and dressed and packed the carpet bag with her nightclothes and the last bits and pieces of what had made this room her own over the last eight months. The final thing to go in was a small framed photograph of herself. Two men stood with her. A short elderly fellow with a mustache wearing a rumpled suit and a flat brimmed black hat stood next to her with his arm around her waist. Behind them both loomed a tall cowboy in a light-colored Stetson wearing a shield-shaped badge. His height, head and shoulders above the two of them, made you look twice to see if perhaps the couple were seated, or the lawman standing on a step, but, no, all three stood in the middle of a dusty street with the outline of a few board buildings behind them.

Kitty looked once around the room. Two trunks stood locked and corded beneath the window. The bed was made. Her bag stood by the door. She picked up the hat that lay on the tall dresser and pinned it firmly onto her upswept mass of red hair. One last glance in the mirror and she gave herself a little nod then bent to pick up the carpetbag and headed down to the kitchen. She would just have time for a cup of coffee before she boarded her train.


	2. Chapter 2

The Stockton train depot was busy that May morning. The young woman who held the reins on the buggy stopped near the entrance and turned impulsively to Kitty. "I do wish you'd stay. Aside from needing you, I'm going to miss you.

Kitty smiled warmly. "We've been through this before, Alice. I know you're worried about what to say when he comes home, but you just lay the blame on me. He'll understand. He's known me a long time." The two women hugged and Kitty kissed the girl on the cheek. She climbed down from the buggy without assistance, took up her carpetbag, and walked briskly through the station door without a backward glance.

She stopped at the newsstand and picked through the books and journals that were displayed, choosing a novel and two newspapers and tucking them under her arm. A fruit vendor provided her with a small basket of fresh strawberries and a couple of apples. Fruit was something she'd come to take for granted during her time in California's central valley. She would miss that. She would miss a lot of things.

Her train was called and Kitty let the black porter help her up the stairs to the first class car and tuck her bag into the rack near her seat. "You gwan far, ma'am?" he asked deferentially.

Kitty handed the man her ticket. "Pretty far. I'll be changing trains in Sacramento."

The man examined the ticket and nodded, "Yes, ma'am. That's sure a far piece. You travelin' alone?" At Kitty's nod, he punched the first part of the ticket and handed it back to her. "You need anything at all, ma'am, you just call for George. I take good care of my ladies." He handed her back the ticket and she settled into the red plush seat next to the window.

Although she wore no wedding ring, the porter hadn't called her "miss". It had been "ma'am". Three times. Kitty lifted her chin and watched out the window as houses quickly changed to long vistas of green fields dotted by clusters of huge, dark liveoaks. Three times. She let a very small sigh escape and then settled down to read yesterday's Sacramento _Bee_.

The Sacramento station was bigger and busier than the one in Stockton. Kitty stepped off the train at mid-morning and went directly to the Ladies' Waiting Room where a pleasant female attendant showed her a small private washroom with a water closet and a sink. She used the facility and then washed quickly, running a damp cloth over her face and the back of her neck. May was hot in central California. Kitty tipped the girl liberally when she came back into the waiting room, and then sat down on one of the ornate wooden seats that looked more like pews than benches.

She only had an hour before her train left for Reno and points east. It would have been easy to fall into a reverie of remembrance and anticipation. She kept her mind firmly occupied watching the other passengers and deciding their destinations and destinies. Her hands itched for a deck of cards and the comfort of a familiar game of solitaire. The attendant, grateful for Kitty's previous tip, notified her at five minutes to eleven that her train was coming in now on platform three. "You'd best start walkin' now, Miss. You wouldn't want to be late." The dime she received for this announcement seemed overly generous to the girl as she watched the tall red-haired woman walk steadily towards the front of the platform. What on earth had she done to deserve that?


	3. Chapter 3

I'd like to thank LadyofDodge for her time and talent in pre-reading this for me - and for a couple of really stellar suggestions - as well as for her own story "The Cause" which in some ways precipitated this one.

OoOoOoO

Kitty locked the door of her compartment behind her and let out a whoosh of breath. She'd paid a premium for a sitting room all to herself for the trip east to Cheyenne. But then, what was the use of money if you didn't spend it? She'd spent nothing but pin money since last fall – been _allowed_ to spend nothing. The train jerked a little as it started up, and she sat herself hastily into one of the seats by the window. The small room was a model of efficiency. She admired the narrow bed made up with crisp white sheets and piled with pillows. There was a washbasin built into an alcove next to the door and she knew that the sliding panel next to it hid a narrow closet. The second berth was still folded up towards the ceiling giving her plenty of headroom. She removed her hat and set it on the seat across from her.

Her trip out to California eight months before hadn't been this comfortable or this well-arranged. She hadn't been able to get a through ticket, much less a berth, and so had spent most of the journey sitting upright in either the lounge car or in various waiting rooms. The couple of times that she had been able to snag a berth it had been as either one of four bunks in a shared compartment, or a bed made up in the main corridor of the Pullman car with only a curtain separating her from all the other passengers snoozing and snoring around her. It had taken her a full week to get to California. She would be back to Dodge in only five days.

Matt hadn't wanted her to go. Her relationship with Thad Ferrin had always been awkward for him. He liked the boy. He was kind to him. He and Festus took him camping and shooting and taught him to ride. Still.

She has once asked Matt what the problem was. "I don't know, Kitty. I know he's just a kid, but it's as if he's judging me… and finds me lacking. Like I'm not good enough for you." He pulled her into his arms with a self-deprecating grin. "In which case, he's exactly right."

But Thad was a responsibility that Kitty took on with loving care whether it made Matt uncomfortable during Christmas holidays and summer breaks or not. She knew it was the kind of responsibility that Matt simply refused to take, and she laid the discomfiture of the relationship there.

"Do you have to go, Kitty?" he asked her as they briefly discussed her trip. "This isn't just a week for school vacation. This is going to be months."

"Yes it is, Matt. But yes, I do have to go." She went ahead and said it right out. "Thad's child, well, this is likely the closest thing to a grandchild I'll ever have. Thad and Alice need me."

"I need you, Kitty." He had said that very quietly. But she remembered when he had said it before, sitting with her after the horror of Jude Bonner's attack as she drifted in and out of consciousness not knowing if she would live or if she even wanted to. He could have said "I love you." He had said that to her many times, although she knew they weren't easy words for him. "I need you." That was even harder.

"Kitty, is there anything at all I can do to make you change your mind?" His voice had been deep and intense. "Would it help if…"

She had stopped him before he went any further down that road. "No, Matt, it wouldn't. If we'd been married for a dozen years and living in a little house with a white picket fence, I would still have to do this. I'm sorry I have to leave you. Sorry for both of us, truth be told, but this isn't like Ballard. I'm not running away. I'm going to do something I need to do for people that I love. Can you understand that, Matt?"

The sweetness of his smile had almost undone her determination. "Oh, I can understand it, Kitty. I'm just not sure I can deal with it."

Kitty leaned back in her seat and turned her mind away from that memory. It wasn't her time in Dodge she wanted to think about on this train trip. She'd had months of quiet days and lonely nights in Stockton to do that. It was what had happened in California that she wanted to weigh and consider. That was what was going to help her figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.


	4. Chapter 4

Thad Ferrin had been part of that life from the day he was born. His mother, Ellie, had been her closest friend. His father had been a handsome, contemptible, egotistical, abusive bandit. She had hated his guts, and it had nearly killed her sometimes to keep all that hate inside when Ellie so clearly loved the man – despite what he did to her. When Ellie died, and she'd taken charge of Thad's life, Kitty had hoped that she could keep him close to her. That hadn't worked out. What she was and the life she lived were not what the boy needed. Good boarding schools and a month or two every summer staying with her friends Maddie and Horace on their small ranch outside of Dodge was the best compromise she could manage. By the time Thad graduated from school and was ready for college, the Kelks had died. The ranch they left him paid for four years at the new Stanford University south of San Francisco.

Thad had finished college a year ago and moved directly into practice at a law firm in Stockton. Kitty spent a week in San Francisco attending both his graduation ceremony and his wedding. It was only six months later that she'd received the urgent telegram summoning her to California.

A knock sounded on her compartment door, and Kitty opened it to the colored porter carrying her lunch on a loaded tray. One-handed - and without even tipping the nearly full wine and water glasses - the man smoothly slid a table up from inside the car wall under the window and levered it into place between the two seats. A tablecloth followed and then the plates and glasses and silver were set out one by one in formal array. "There you go, ma'am. All set. I be back for those dishes in about an hour."

Kitty slipped into the seat. The meal was simple but elegant – roast chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and tiny green peas all garnished with fresh California fruit – and it was still warm. That was something Delmonico's didn't always manage even with the kitchen a few scant yards away. She spread her napkin on her lap, took a sip from her wine glass, and started her meal.

The wine was a full-bodied local red. Not quite the right thing to serve with chicken, she knew, but she had asked for it and the porter had made no demure at the unusual combination. She'd asked that he bring the bottle as well, and it stood mostly full there on the table next to her slice of apple pie.

Liquor was an issue she hadn't even thought to consider when she left Dodge. The first month was especially hard. Kitty had never considered herself a heavy drinker. In fact, she knew she wasn't. But she'd been having a couple of glasses of whiskey a day, and often a beer or two on top of that, for nearly twenty-five years. Oh, there were days when she didn't drink, but the liquor was always there, and if she wanted it there was nothing to stop her. Drinking and socializing were part of her life running a saloon. The thing was… ladies didn't drink. And in Stockton she'd had to be a lady.

And she hadn't liked it much.

That gave her a lot to think on.

As she ate, Kitty considered her time in Stockton and her discussions about returning to Kansas.

At first Thad seemed eminently reasonable. But as the conversation moved along Kitty began to realize that in raising Thad as she had, she'd gotten exactly what she paid for – a handsome, well-behaved young man with firm middle-class values. They'd sat one day last month on the wide, shady back porch – away from the open windows of the front bedroom where Alice slept, the baby tucked at her side. "Why do you have to go back, Aunt Kitty? Aren't you happy here? What is there for you in Dodge?"

"You know the answer to that, Thad."

"Marshal Dillon."

Kitty smiled. "Soon to be marshal no longer."

"If he truly loved you, Aunt Kitty, he would have married you years ago. And he would have taken better care of you. It makes me angry to think of all the things that have happened to you because of him."

Kitty tilted her head to look at him speculatively and address the first of his comments while ignoring the others, "What is marriage, Thad? Does it have to be a church and a white dress and flowers like you and Alice had?"

"That's the way most people do it, Aunt Kitty. It's a symbol of your commitment to each other - a public acknowledgement of your relationship."

"Well you have me there, Thad. Matt's never been willing to make our relationship public, and he had his reasons for that, and you know them. But the people who need to know, well, they know. Our commitment was sealed with blood and gunpowder, but it was sealed nonetheless." Those were things that meant a lot more than a dress, and a ring, and a cake.

Thad picked up her hand and kissed it. "I want the very best for you, Aunt Kitty. You gave me everything – made me what I am today – and now I'm able to take care of you. I don't want to see you going back to running a saloon – rough, dirty men and spilled whiskey and gunfights. Please, at least tell me you'll think about it."

"I'll think about it, Thad."

And she had.


	5. Chapter 5

She'd thought about it when the minister's wife came by to pray with Alice - long, strident prayers that concentrated on the pain of childbirth and forgiveness for the sins of the flesh. Afterwards, sitting with Kitty in the parlor while Alice's housekeeper served tea, the woman had pointedly and politely interrogated her hostess. "So Mr. Ferrin's mother's maiden name was Russell. I didn't know that. Are you any relation to the Oakland Russells?"

"Not that I know of. Our people came from New Orleans." _Our people abandoned us in New Orleans_ , Kitty thought.

That flustered the good woman quite a bit. "Your family are… Southerners?" Clearly that was the most polite term her New England brain could hit upon.

"We'd no family left by the time Ellie died, ma'am. But she and I were very close."

"And did you know Mr. Ferrin's father?"

 _You mean before I killed him_ , Kitty had been tempted to ask. But she controlled herself. "Yes, I did. I was with him when he died."

"How very sad, my dear. But you yourself never married?"

"No, I've had my hands full running my business in Kansas. There never seemed to be a right time for marriage."

"What kind of business do you operate, Miss Russell?"

"I run a public house, ma'am. It's a small town, but a lively one, and people passing through need a safe place to stay and good things to eat and drink." That wasn't exactly a lie. Both statements were true – they just weren't quite related the way they seemed to be.

"Ah, a boarding house. That's what we call it here. But surely you do not serve strong drink to your customers?"

"We've been known to do that."

"But you must not! If you had ever seen what drunkenness can do to a man, the havoc it can wreck upon his family, I'm sure you would never do so again. I shall bring you some tracts to read. We will talk again."

But they hadn't. Kitty made very sure of it. Whenever the good lady called, Alice was ill, or sleeping, or both, and had been forbidden all visitors by the doctor.

And he was a good doctor. He came down on the train twice a month from Sacramento to see Alice. Doc Adams scoured his way through every contact he'd made in his long career to find the best man in obstetrics available in her area. Doctor Morse reminded her of Doc, in manner if not in looks, and he agreed heartily that Alice needed rest and quiet and gave standing orders that anyone who upset her was to be denied the house.

Kitty became deeply fond of Alice in those long months. The girl might be a married woman, but she was very much an innocent. She was, however, gentle, optimistic, and intelligent. Like Thad, she was an orphan. Unlike Thad, her family had left her money. She'd been raised, as he had, mainly in boarding schools. But for her there was no Aunt Kitty to fill the place of absent parents. A succession of governesses wasn't the same at all. She loved Kitty on sight and was grateful to her for coming to stay.

At first Alice was allowed to dress and sit up during the day, to take her meals at the dining table. But during the last difficult months, with Alice's legs and hands grossly swollen and her stomach unable to tolerate much more than tea or broth, she was confined to bed. Kitty had spent her days in the sickroom. She soothed, she entertained, she read aloud, she sewed with smiling resentment on an endless chain of tiny clothes of tucked batiste. She changed linen, wiped up vomit, and emptied slops.

The baby was born in late February after an early but prolonged labor. Things were easier after that. Alice recovered quickly, grateful to be well again. And she listened with rapt attention as Kitty explained to her in intimate detail what she could do to avoid another pregnancy. "I didn't know such things existed, Kitty. Are you sure of all this? How did you find out?" Then in sudden doubt, "Perhaps I should discuss this with the doctor."

"You go ahead and try that, Alice, but don't be disappointed if he's no help. Doctors are forbidden by law to discuss this kind of thing with a woman, and most won't. They'll just tell you and Thad to take separate bedrooms, but that's not any way to conduct a marriage."

"But if it's against the law, it must be wrong... " Alice started to protest, but Kitty's laughter caught her up.

"It's not against the law to do it, honey, just for men - doctors - to talk about it. Women have been doin' it for years on end, and tellin' each other about it in private. Passing things on. Like from me to you. Now if you watch your cycle carefully, and you use the sponge and the lemon juice I got you, things should be pretty safe. And I'll talk to Thad about a couple of other things he can do that will help."

The talk with Thad embarrassed him but not her. "I know about things like that, Aunt Kitty. Well, some of them," he had admitted, "But that's what you do with prostitutes. Not with your wife! I'm surprised you even know about those kinds of..."

She just looked at him. His face red, he turned away from her and left the room.

But she had to give him credit. He had returned almost immediately and apologized. He agreed to try. He seemed more like the little boy she had known and loved so dearly when he admitted, faltering a little, "It's just that I love her so much, Aunt Kitty. And I've been so scared. I wouldn't want to live if I lost her."

That warmed Kitty's heart. "Doctor Morse says - and Doc Adams too - that there's no reason to believe that this condition will return when Alice has another child. But if it's been hard on you, Thad, it's been even harder on her. See what you can do to help her have a few quiet years with the new baby before you have more children."

With Alice's health improving every day there was more time for Kitty to get out and meet people in the town. While spending most of her days at home with Alice and the baby, she began to accept invitations to a few evening parties and dances. She received two proposals of marriage and several proposals of a different nature. She turned them all down. She was ready to head home, but Thad was still unwilling for her to go.

Then in early May a letter from Matt brought her the date of his retirement. It had been a hard year for him. Her correspondence with Doc let her know the things Matt never mentioned. His left-handed draw was accurate and faster than most, but not up to his old standard. His knee injuries troubled him more and more, and a day on horseback was no longer accomplished without consequence. Matt wanted her home, and she wanted to be there.

Kitty had a frank and private talk with Alice. The girl took it more calmly than she expected. "I'm not very worldly, Aunt Kitty, but I'm not a fool," she said. "It's time for you to go home and be about your own business. I will never be able to thank you enough for what you've done for me. For the first time in my life, I've felt that I really had family." Kitty gave her a kiss and kissed the baby boy in her arms, then she put on her hat and went to buy train tickets for the following week when Thad would be in San Francisco at a conference.


	6. Chapter 6

The train stopped long enough in Reno later that afternoon for Kitty to get out and walk up and down the platform for half an hour stretching her legs and enjoying the cooler mountain air. As the train clacked slowly across Nevada the heat increased and Kitty removed her jacket and then unbuttoned the collar of her blouse – something she could never have done sitting in the passenger car. Short stops in Winnemucca and Elko and little towns whose names she didn't even know led them, as the sky darkened, across the desert towards the basin of the Great Salt Lake.

"You want for to eat in the dining car this evening, ma'am?" her porter asked as he checked on her late in the day.

"No, thank you, George. I'll have my meal here if it's not too much trouble."

"Ain't no trouble, ma'am. I just worried about you sittin' all alone like this."

"I have things to think about," she said, "Plans to make."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied politely, but he left the compartment shaking his head.

Nightfall brought some respite from the day's heat, but Kitty left the window open a bit and enjoyed the breeze as she settled herself beneath the sheets – it was still far too warm for a blanket. The berth was narrow, but she thought about what it would be like to have Matt there with her. They would lie close, Matt on the outside to 'protect' her. She threw off the sheets and sat up drawing her nightgown over her head Then she lay back and let the air caress her naked body. She hadn't slept naked since the night before she left Dodge, and it felt good. That was another thing ladies didn't do. They didn't lie in bed naked waiting for a lover to arrive late at night and then slip away again at dawn. Well, Matt wasn't here with her now, but she'd see him soon. And what life would they choose then?

Kitty lay still with the train rumbling along under her and thought about their future. She wondered if Matt was doing the same thing. _Maybe not_ , she thought wryly. It seemed that for Matt, each day's ventures were all that mattered. Or was that just because he lived life one day at a time, never taking a bet on there being a tomorrow? As he finally faced his retirement, surely he, too, was thinking about what they would do - next week, next month, next year? Maybe not.

She'd never quite had that ability to live only in the moment. Her life revolved around the turn of the year - the delivery of whiskey orders and beer barrels, the annual arrival of the herds from Texas, rodeos on the Fourth of July, and a party on Christmas Eve. But the herds were largely gone. Oh, the local ranchers still shipped beeves back East, but it wasn't like the old days. The very growth of the railroads that had made this comfortable trip possible for her had turned Dodge City from the Gomorrah of the Plains into a backwater town in a state where farmers, not ranchers, held sway.

That hadn't necessarily been a good thing for her and Matt. She smiled remembering the days fifteen years or more ago when Matt and Chester would sit outside the jail snoozing or gossiping with their chairs tipped back against the brick wall. The marshal was always ready for trouble, but mostly he let it come to him. And mostly he stayed in town walking his rounds, breaking up fights, and pulling his gun when he needed to. And now and again, then more and more, spending his nights in her big brass bed above the bar of the Long Branch saloon.

There were good times and bad, but they lived through them together because Matt's presence in Dodge City was necessary on a day-to-day basis. As the town grew calmer and Matt's deputies grew more experienced, the marshal's job changed. Matt explained it to her over and over - as if understanding it could make her accept it. He was the federal marshal "out of Dodge City". That didn't mean he was assigned to watch over just Dodge. It meant that was where his office was. It didn't necessarily mean that's where his work was. The trips down into the Nations, up into the Dakotas, as far west as Oregon, and time and again down into Mexico – those kept him away from Dodge and away from her.

The train swayed as it rounded a curve and the whistle blew a mournful wail. What would it be like, she wondered, to actually have Matt with her every day? And every night? If they had that, did anything else really matter? On that thought she drifted into sleep and didn't wake until George knocked on her door early the next morning. "Second seating for breakfast in half an hour, Miss Russell! We be in Salt Lake City before lunchtime."

The train stopped briefly in Ogden, Utah – just north of Salt Lake – a little before eleven. Kitty stayed on board and watched the platform from her compartment. She was comfortable, and the train was only there for a quarter hour. Soon they were chugging east again through the desert, and her mind was churning along as well. She was forty-two years old. She would never be young again, but she was healthy and she had a good bit of money set by. She felt herself caught in a vice – too old for some things, too young for others. What did she want to do with the next twenty years?

She tried to focus on the future, but she couldn't seem to find anything real to hang onto. She'd spent twenty years running a saloon, and a number of years before that working in saloons and worse places. She knew that life – knew which parts she liked and which she didn't. She'd only lived less than a year as a respectable, middle-aged, maiden aunt, but it hadn't taken her near that long to figure out she didn't care much for it. It had been worth it, of course. She would do it all again if she needed to, but… there must be some middle ground between the lady and the scarlet woman. Her job was to find it.


	7. Chapter 7

The train was due to arrive in Cheyenne, Wyoming at nine that evening, but it was - as usual –late. Kitty didn't undress but when midnight came and went, and they were still puffing slowly up the mountain grades outside of Rawlins she laid down on her berth trusting George to wake her in time to exit the train. He did, but it was past four in the morning and less than an hour before dawn.

Kitty toted her carpetbag into the brick and stone edifice that was the Cheyenne depot. She looked around for a porter or a carriage but found none. Armed with her dignity and the directions the hotel had sent her, she exited the depot and walked a block down 15th Street before taking a right at Carey. She might not have done it at midnight, or even at noon, but years in the saloon business assured her that this was likely the quietest time of night for a western town – after the saloons and gambling halls closed and before the more sedate businesses opened up with the sun. It was three long blocks down Carey to the Wind River Hotel, but she made the walk without meeting a single person – although two dogs intent on having a word with a large tomcat did briefly interrupt her travel.

The night clerk at the hotel raised a sleepy face from behind his desk and pushed the register across the counter for her to sign. He did rouse enough to take her bag up to her room for her. He pointed out the doors for the bathroom and the water closet and told her that breakfast would be served between seven and eight. Kitty had absolutely no intention of attending that meal. She didn't even light a lamp. A pale grey illumination was beginning to lift the darkness at the windows as she locked the door behind her, dropped her bag in a chair, and took time only to remove her shoes and dress before sprawling across the bed. She pulled a pillow over her face as a precaution against the imminent arrival of the sun, and fell into a sound sleep.

At noon, after a hot bath and a change of underthings, Kitty headed downstairs with a firm intention of finding lunch. The hotel dining room wasn't exactly bustling but there were several well-dressed gentlemen at one table, and a family with several children seated at another. A waitress in a long-sleeved black dress and white apron showed her to a table near the front window and left her with a menu and a promise of coffee.

The coffee appeared quickly, but it was brought by a woman wearing a neat calico day dress and a familiar face. "You mind if I join you, Miss Kitty?"

"Of course not." Kitty sipped the coffee her companion poured for her and concentrated on her face. The woman smiled slightly and gave her the opportunity to remember. It didn't take too long. "Dora! Dora Frazier! No, it would be… Dora Kellerman?"

Dora grinned. "Dora Kettering. That's mighty good work, Miss Kitty. It's been all of ten years since I left Dodge City."

"You look all grown up, Dora. When you left, well, you weren't much more than a child."

That sobered the young woman. "I guess I wasn't, Miss Kitty, but I sure felt I needed to leave Dodge. It was right after," she hesitated, "After…"

"It was after Mace Gore took the town hostage for a night and shot the Marshal and almost killed him," Kitty said matter-of-factly.

"I always felt that was partly my fault. He was defending me when those thugs beat him up and then shot him."

Kitty shook her head. "You surely know better than that, Dora. Matt was doing his job. No way he could have let those men have you."

"That's what my father said," Dora replied. "I suppose my head knew that, but heart didn't always believe it."

The waitress showed up then with a plate of beef stew and a basket of fresh bread. "I took the liberty of ordering for you, Miss Kitty. It's the best thing on the menu today. Ma Elder makes a stew that just melts in your mouth. And there's berry pie for dessert. Being on the Union Pacific line we get fruit out of California almost every day."

"Why thank you, Dora. I can't think of anything that would taste better. Now you just sit there and tell me how things have been going while I eat."

Dora chatted about the hotel - which she said belonged to her, her husband, and the bank – and about life in Cheyenne. "You know that women can vote here, don't you, Miss Kitty?" she said at last as the waitress brought over two pieces of pie and a pitcher of cream and then quickly cleared the other dishes.

Kitty tilted her head a little. "I heard that, Dora, but I was never sure whether or not to believe it. I mean, it seemed like one of those things that men make up and put in the newspapers, but that doesn't actually happen in real life."

"It's true all right, Miss Kitty. I voted in the town elections last fall. All the women here in Cheyenne take it pretty seriously. The colored woman who does laundry for me, she voted, and she was born a slave. Her husband wouldn't go. He was afraid what people might do, but Polly, she just walked up cool as a cucumber and asked them to read her the ballot and she made her mark and voted."

"Well good for her!" Kitty exclaimed. "Wyoming sounds like a sensible place to live." She frowned a little. "But didn't you and Bob Kettering head off for… for Iowa? After you got married?"

"We did. Bob's folks still had family there and they welcomed us. We worked on his grandfather's farm for a couple of years, and then got our own place. You've never seen land so rich, Miss Kitty! Moist black soil that just goes down and down. Hardly any rocks, and water - oh, rain and creeks and wells just all over."

"So how'd you end up here then, honey?" Kitty asked. It seemed like there was more to Dora's story than she was hearing.

Her companion looked down at her hands, and then up again at Kitty's face. "You remember how Doc Adams inoculated all the school kids in Dodge? Back that summer when there were all the Centennial celebrations and when there was that smallpox scare in Cimmaron?"

Kitty's hand fell to run idly over the outside of her left thigh. She noticed Dora making the same subtle gesture. "Yes, I do. He inoculated a lot of the adults, too. I let all my girls watch while he did mine, so they wouldn't be afraid, and then got them to do it too." She brought up her hand to clasp the other woman's. "Was there smallpox in Iowa?"

Dora nodded. "In eighty-five. I had two babies, Miss Kitty. My little girl was almost two and her brother was just a few months old. They both died." Kitty squeezed the girl's hand. There didn't seem to be anything to say. But Dora took a breath and went on. "After that, well, Bob and I just didn't think we could live there anymore. So we headed west again and rolled up here after a few months. Bob tended bar, and I cleaned rooms, and cooked, and took in laundry, too. We saved as much as we could and we learned the business. When the owner died last year the bank helped us out and we bought the place."

"It's a nice hotel, Dora. It came highly recommended when I was asking around in Stockton."

"When I got your letter last week, I wasn't sure it was the same person. I mean, Stockton? I didn't think you'd ever leave Dodge City and… well, I didn't think you'd leave Dodge City. But then I saw you when you came downstairs, and I knew you right off. I wondered if you'd remember me." Dora looked up smiling into Kitty's eyes, "And you did!"

"I'm headed back to Dodge now, Dora. I had a layover here, but I'm getting on the Denver and Rio Grande train when it leaves tomorrow morning. I'll take that down to Pueblo and then head out for Dodge City on the Santa Fe the next day."

"You been away for a while, Miss Kitty? Did something go wrong?"

Kitty shook her head. "No something went very right. A young relative of mine had a difficult time with a baby a couple of months ago and I went out to Stockton to help her out. She's fine now and the baby, well, a baby is always a treasure."

"That is just exactly right." Dora glanced around the room and then leaned a little closer. "I'm going to have another baby, too, Miss Kitty. In six months or so. Bob and I, well, it was hard for a while, but then we decided it would be worth it."

"Congratulations, Dora," Kitty told her. "Why don't you let me take you and Bob to dinner this evening? You must know the best place in town."

"Well, we like to think this is the best place in town, but there's a club a couple blocks over on 20th. Some women won't go there because they serve liquor, and there's a room with cards and gambling, but you wouldn't mind that, would you, Miss Kitty?"

"No, honey, I wouldn't mind that at all."


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning saw Kitty waiting on the platform for the 9:16 train south. The train belonged to the Denver and Rio Grande railway, but inside the Pullman car everything looked the same as it had on the Union Pacific – and her smiling, black porter still answered readily to "George". She had reserved a private first class compartment, but not a sitting room this time. It was only six or seven hours to Pueblo. She had carefully chosen a through train so she wouldn't have to change in Denver.

Heading south in the fresh morning air Kitty let herself think about Denver. Usually she turned her mind away from that hellish journey on the gold train. Matt's injury, the robbers intent on plundering army gold, Doc's emergency surgery – that whole nightmare still chilled her. There had been plenty of bad times over the years, she divided them up in her mind into two kinds of suffering; the things that had hurt her and the things that had hurt Matt, and through him, her as well. Abduction and rape by Jude Bonner and his Dog Soldiers, that topped the list of injuries to her own body, mind, and soul. But with a disregard for her own well-being that she easily recognized in her lover, but didn't seem to notice in herself, Kitty thought of the worst times as those when he had suffered.

The bullet lodged in Matt's spine during that awful trip to Denver - that was still the hardest. Even the bullets that had shredded his right arm last year weren't as bad. Matt had recovered from that injury, some at least, and learned to move on and do his job, or part of it, with his left hand. The worst that injury could have done – even if it had taken his arm – would have been to force him out from behind the badge. The injury to his spine… no, Matt could never have accepted that. Thinking of the big marshal stuck in a bed or a chair, unable to move, that filled Kitty's eyes with tears, but she blinked them away. One way or another Festus would have smuggled him a gun. Matt would have made it look like an accident, even at the cost of his own pain, but he would not have lived that way. That was what had filled her mind throughout that whole trip to Denver. It was why she had insisted on going. And when Doc had finally operated on him her prayer had been that he either recovered or he died. She'd stood there with the ether while Doc worked, ready to spill the whole bottle into the mask if need be at the first word of failure.

No, Denver was not a city she ever wanted to see again.

Kitty turned it over in her mind. Would she really have helped Matt to die if Doc had failed in his surgery? She looked at it as coldly as she could manage and thought the answer was yes. She thought about other men she had killed – most recently Jay Wrecken. Was that only three years ago? Sometimes it seemed like much less – sometimes like more. Neither of the Wrecken brothers had believed that a woman would pull the trigger. But she had. By that time in her life, she had known for sure what she was capable of living with, what she was capable of doing to stay alive.

That first man she'd shot, back when she was still in her twenties - that had been hard. Matt had helped see her through the aftermath, just as she tried to help him when the shootings and the killings took their toll. Maybe that needed to figure into her plans. No more killing. Could it really happen? Not likely. Not entirely. Wherever they went, Matt would still need to wear a gun. Men he had sent to prison would be released and come looking for him. But could they make it better? They could only try. And what they couldn't change they would live with.

The mountains were behind her now. The countryside sported rolling hills green with spring growth. Little touches of snow still showed white in shadowed pockets under banks and in the lea of hills. Spring was always the best time in Kansas as well. She remembered riding with Matt across what seemed an endless undulating green prairie cool with last night's rain and touched with a warm breeze. She wondered if there were seasons in her own life. If so, spring hadn't been a very good one for her.

Summer – well, summer had been mixed. Those twenty years in Dodge would be her summer. There had been good times. There were still good friends. There had been fright and death and threatening despair. But the thing was - she hadn't been alone. She had never had to face either the good things or the bad alone. She sat a little more upright and gave herself an inner shake. Yes, she'd found what she was looking for. The summer of her life was ending, but autumn hadn't even begun. And autumn was a good time – barn dances, and preserves, and the satisfaction of harvest home - shorter cooler days and long cozy nights.

Kitty stood up and straightened her hat at the small mirror by the door and then headed down the corridor to see what was for lunch in the dining car. Pueblo couldn't possibly come too soon.


	9. Chapter 9

Getting off the train in Pueblo felt almost like coming home. The air was a little drier, the buildings were a little bigger, but it felt more like Dodge than anywhere she had been recently. Kitty knew that Pueblo was more than twice the size of Cheyenne, but it was much more familiar to her. Ever since the Santa Fe Railroad had opened tracks through from Dodge, this had been a major destination for shopping for herself and for the Long Branch. And more than once she'd managed to persuade Matt to join her for a few days at the Columbine Hotel. And that's where she was headed right now.

Several horse-drawn cabs were lined up outside the depot and she engaged one to take her and her carpetbag to the hotel. It was still mid-afternoon. The streets were busy and all the stores were open. Kitty wondered if it might be possible to find a ready-made dress that would fit her. Four days on the train in the same clothes had her itching for a change. She spent only long enough at the hotel to check in and have a quick wash before she set out for the stores on Union Avenue. By dinnertime she had a new traveling dress – with a matching hat – in a dark green serge trimmed with black braid, and a very elegant, but quite simple, evening dress made of royal blue silk. It wasn't what she would have worn for a night shift at the Long Branch, but it was perfect for an evening out in the city.

By the time she returned to the hotel - a delivery boy following her with a pile of packages and a new, and slightly larger, leather valise - the stores were beginning to close for the day. She tipped the boy, picked up her key, and headed up to her room. She had indulged in the luxury of a private bathroom and she began her transformation with a hot tub and then a change of underthings. The blue silk slipped on smoothly, and she spent a few appreciative minutes taking inventory in front of the long mirror.

Her hair was still as smooth and red gold as ever. Redheads, she knew, were lucky in two ways – first, their hair was usually slow to grey, and second, a little bit of henna could turn the lighter strands to bronze without really showing the change. She hadn't had to resort to that yet, but was ready to do so when the time came. She admired the slim form that met her eyes. Certainly a good bit thinner than she'd been last year when she left Dodge. The months with Alice, constantly tempting her to eat (and continually dealing with the unpleasant after-effects of those meals) had affected her own appetite. Her waist hadn't been this trim in a good ten years. She turned this way and that, admiring the view, but her forehead creased in a frown when she thought of Doc's likely comments.

It was nearly seven when she entered the dining room at the hotel. A waiter showed her to a table in the corner, presented her with a menu, and asked if she were dining alone. "She most certainly is not," said a voice behind her and Kitty turned to see Mike Wirth.

"Mike! How nice to see you! What are you doing in Pueblo?" she asked.

"Came in to buy some horses, Miss Kitty. My, but it's good to see you again! We've sure missed you in Dodge. Now you for sure need to let me buy you dinner."

"Well, I'd be pleased to have some company during the meal and catch up on what's been happening while I was gone, but you don't have to pay for my dinner, Mike."

He held her chair and then seated himself beside her. "We'll argue that one when the bill comes, Miss Kitty," he said, but Kitty saw the nod he gave to the waiter and knew she'd never even get a look at that bill.

"How's your father, Mike?"

"Now I thought maybe you had heard that, Miss Kitty," the young man said looking down briefly at the table and then up into her face, "Jake died this Easter. He lived a good, full life, and I miss him like the dickens, but I'm running the Wirth spread these days."

Kitty impulsively reached out to squeeze Mike's hands. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mike. I knew Jake for a good many years and admired him. He'd always have a drink with me when he came into Dodge." In the early years, he'd have a little more than just a drink, and paid handsomely for the privilege, but she didn't say that to his son.

They spent a pleasant hour at dinner, and Kitty did catch up on things – as much by what Mike didn't say as what he did. Mike was forthright in his disappointment that Matt was stepping down as marshal, but solid in his backing of Newly O'Brian as his replacement. "Folks were worried that we'd get that other marshal who was here last year when Matt was shot, and, well, nobody around Dodge City took to him much. But Newly, he knows the people and he knows how to keep things running smooth."

Mike did pay for the meal, at least he waved it away and told the waiter to put it on his room bill, then he asked Kitty if he could see her back to her room. "Evening's young, Mike," she replied, "I'm going to try my luck at a few rounds of poker at the Wagon Wheel, but if you'd like to walk me over there, I would appreciate it."

"Be proud to, Miss Kitty. Nothing like a little walk in the evening with a pretty lady on my arm!"

Kitty did enjoy the walk. It was only a few blocks but they dawdled, looking in store windows, and commenting on the fine weather. Mike wanted to buy her an ice cream at Portino's Palace, but she wasn't sure how well that would mix with what she planned to drink later in the evening, so she politely declined. He tipped his hat to her as he left her at the door of the Wagon Wheel, and Kitty watched him walk away – a good-looking man of about thirty, dark-haired, and neatly dressed in the jacket and string tie that passed for formal wear in the West. She'd enjoyed his company but found him strikingly young. She wondered how he saw her? An old friend of the family? It didn't really matter, she told herself, it had been an enjoyable start to a pleasant evening.

Heads turned as she entered the bar of the Wagon Wheel. It was more of a gambling house than a saloon, but there weren't many women about. Bud Wheeler came from behind the bar with both hands extended and met her in the middle of the room. "Kitty Russell!" he said kissing her cheek, "And isn't it just fine to see you on this spring evening! You in town for long?"

She shook her head. "Leaving for Dodge on the morning train, Bud, but I thought I'd see if anyone was playin' poker this evening."

Bud tilted his head at her. "You here to clean me out, Kitty?" But when she just laughed he asked her "High stakes or low?"

"Something middling, I guess. Table stakes and I don't want to play more than a dollar or two in ante."

"Got a game upstairs that's just perfect. You'll be the only lady, but you know a couple of the gents, and the house is dealing so everything's on the up and up."

"If the house is dealing, then that means you're expectin' the house to win."

"Well, I can always hope so. Let me take you up and introduce you."

"That sounds fine, Bud. And ask your barman to bring me up a glass of brandy."

"With pleasure, Kitty, with pleasure. Wish we saw more of you here in Pueblo," he replied.

Kitty played until nearly midnight. She won some, lost some, and stayed out of the biggest pots despite decent cards. As she folded her stack of bills and pushed it back into her reticule she figured she was a little over a hundred dollars ahead. It had been a good night.

An older gentleman who had been introduced to her as Mr. Solomon rose from the table when she did. "I'll also call it a night, gentlemen. Miss Russell, may I see you back to your hotel?"

Kitty would have preferred someone she knew better, but really didn't want to walk the three blocks back to the Columbine on her own. Bud had introduced her to the man, and Bud would see them leaving together. That felt pretty safe. "Thank you, sir. That would be kind of you," she replied.

Solomon made polite conversation with her as they walked, but rather than taking his leave of her in the lobby he civilly but intently propositioned her – not actually offering money but making it clear that this would be no object if it were required. Kitty turned him down just as courteously, but very firmly, and headed up to her room.

She had taken her hair down and was just beginning to unfasten the basque of her dress when a knock came on her door. She wasn't expecting that, but it could be Mike Worth, or Bud Wheeler, or even - her heart pounded a little – Matt come to meet her. She removed the derringer from her reticule and held it down in the folds of her skirt as she opened the door.


	10. Chapter 10

Solomon was standing outside smiling and holding a bottle of good whiskey. "I thought you might like to join me in a nightcap, Kitty," he suggested.

"It's Miss Russell, and I already told you no." Kitty moved to shut the door, but he stepped forward and grasped her arm. She shot him.

The report was loud in the enclosed space. So was the man's yelp as he dropped the bottle and clutched his left arm with his right hand. "You little bitch," he hissed, "You _shot_ me!" He moved forward again, but Kitty raised the derringer.

"My gun may be small, Mr. Solomon, but it has two barrels. The next one goes into your heart, or possibly between your legs." The sound of running feet came from further down the hall, and doors began to open around them.

A breathless desk clerk slid to a stop next to Solomon. "You all right, Miss Russell?" he asked.

Solomon spoke before Kitty had a chance to. "This woman shot me, man! Get the sheriff up here. I want her arrested."

The clerk looked wide-eyed at the man bleeding in front of him. "You want _her_ arrested?" he said in disbelief. Then he turned to Kitty and asked again, "Are you all right, ma'am?"

"I'm fine, Tommy," Kitty replied, "But maybe we ought to have the sheriff."

"I sent my bellman for him when I heard the shot," the clerk replied. "He should be here any minute."

"You need any help there, ma'am?" asked a gentleman standing in the open door across the hall. He was barefoot and his shirt tails fell loose over partially buttoned trousers, but his gunbelt was firmly buckled and his hand hovered over his pistol.

Kitty smiled. "I don't think so, sir, but thank you all the same. I've still got a barrel left on my derringer should Mr. Solomon decide to get frisky."

Another man standing in the corridor wearing a nightshirt and carrying a Winchester made a derisive sound. "Give it to him where it'll do the most good, ma'am. Nobody could blame you."

Sheriff Martin arrived about then. A short, balding man several years older than Matt, he cleared the hallway with quiet authority before turning to her, "Did he hurt you, Miss Kitty?"

"No, Pick, I'm fine, just a little provoked. This yahoo seemed to think he had some business in my room. I told him no, but he didn't seem to hear me."

"You sure, honey? I'd hate to have anything happen to you in Pueblo!"

"I'm fine. Really. You want to take this fella away before he makes any more mess on the carpets?"

Tommy looked down at the blood dripping on the carpet and made an irritated tsk-ing noise. He stepped politely past Kitty into the room and returned a moment later with a towel which he handed to Solomon. "See if you can keep from bleeding on things, mister."

Solomon held the towel to his arm and again attempted to turn the conversation. Grimacing, he used his right hand to pull a business card from the inside pocket of his jacket. He addressed the sheriff. "My name is James Solomon. I'm a director for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. This fancy piece here invited me up to her room for a drink and then shot me. Probably planned on robbing me as well. I want her arrested." He took a breath before continuing. "And I need a doctor."

The sheriff looked an apologetic glance at Kitty, but she just shook her head. "You want to prefer charges, Miss Kitty?"

"I just want him out of here so I can get some sleep, Pick. I'm heading home on the early train tomorrow.

The sheriff reached out a gentle hand and patted her lightly on the shoulder. "You go ahead to bed, honey. I'll lock him up for the night. You be sure and give Matt my best when you get to Dodge City."

Kitty gave him a nod and a smile, closed her door, locked it, and went about getting ready for bed.

Out in the corridor, Tommy was crouched on the floor voicing peeved comments about getting bloodstains out of the carpet. The sheriff took Solomon's right arm and began leading him towards the stairs. The man balked. "What's going on here! You need to arrest that lightskirt."

Sighing but showing great patience, Martin hustled his prisoner along. "You know who that _lady_ is, mister?" There was just enough emphasis on the term to show his feelings for Solomon's vocabulary.

"Kitty Russell. Bud Wheeler over at the Wagon Wheel introduced her to me this evening and I played poker with her for a few hours. She took nearly a hundred and fifty dollars off of me."

"Made you mad, did it?"

"No woman plays that well," he replied.

"Kitty Russell does," the sheriff commented calmly. "She's one of the best gamblers between here and the Mississippi. And don't you go trying to say she cheated. That dog won't hunt. Now you want to tell me what really happened?"

"I need a doctor." Solomon stated belligerently.

"Doc Sanford will meet us over to the jail. Now you go ahead and tell me what you were doin' trying to break into Miss Kitty's room."

"I didn't break in! I walked her back from the Wagon Wheel and she invited me up to her room. I stopped at the bar for a bottle of whiskey, and when I got to her room, she pulled that gun on me and shot me."

"Kitty Russell invited _you_ up to her room?"

"Someone must have told her who I was. She probably joined that poker game just to get an introduction to me. And believe me, Bud Wheeler's going to hear about that."

They were outside now, and Martin pulled Solomon roughly across the street. "Mister, you're a fool. I don't know where you're from, but if your railroad thinks a man like you can do business out West they are sadly mistaken." He pushed the prisoner through the door to the Sheriff's Office and into a chair in the waiting room.

A clean-shaven young man with military bearing was waiting for them. "This my patient, Pick?" the man asked opening a black case sitting on the table.

"It is."

"What happened to him?" the doctor asked.

"Kitty Russell shot him."

"Well, damn." The doctor didn't give Solomon a chance to remove his jacket or unbutton his shirt, just tore the sleeves of both off at the shoulder. "Why'd she do that, Pick? Did he hurt her? Shall I go on up and see her?"

"No, she's fine. She unloaded one barrel of that little tit-gun Matt bought for her into his arm. He's pretty lucky she didn't shoot for his heart. Or his balls." After a loud moment or two while the doctor poured raw alcohol over the gash on Solomon's arm the sheriff continued drily. "He says Kitty bilked him at poker and then invited him up to her room. Probably to rob him."

"Say what?" The doctor blinked in disbelief and then began roughly wrapping a bandage around Solomon's upper arm. "Now why on earth would he think she would do that?"

"I'm a very important man, Doctor," his patient replied through gritted teeth. "And the business I control can buy and sell this town. And I want to see my attorney."

"You done, Doc?" Pick Martin asked.

The doctor tied a last knot on the bandage. "Yep."

"Thanks, then. Send the bill to the Denver and Rio Grande."

"I want to see my attorney immediately!" Solomon repeated.

"Morning will be plenty of time for that, fella," Martin answered. He took him down the hall and locked him into a cell with two cots and a mean-looking drunk - his head in a bucket losing his evening's entertainment.

Doctor Sanford was still in the outer office drinking a cup of coffee when the sheriff returned. "Didn't he know that was Matt Dillon's woman?"

"Nope," the sheriff responded pouring himself a cup of coffee. "But likely he'll learn."


	11. Chapter 11

Kitty was humming a little as she tripped lightly down the stairs early the next morning. Pick Martin was waiting for her in the lobby. She paid her bill and asked the clerk to have her bags taken to the station before she turned a smiling face to where the sheriff stood, hat in hand, waiting for her.

"Mornin', Pick," she greeted him. "Everything all right?"

"Everything to do with last night's little business is just fine, Kitty. I thought I'd see you safe onto the train before I dropped into the railway office to have a word with the manager there."

"Mr. Solomon still in jail?"

"He is."

"Well, my train's due in about fifteen minutes, you can let him out then."

Martin shook his head. "That's the part that's not going so well. Your train was stuck at Raton Pass most of the night, and it'll be at least a couple hours late. Thought maybe you might come have breakfast with me."

Kitty had to make a sincere effort to keep her smile in place. She had hoped that three hours from now she would be in Garden City and nearly home. "That would be lovely, Pick. I imagine the depot will just hold my bags until the train arrives."

"I don't doubt it for a minute."

The sheriff opened the front door for her and placed a light hand on her back guiding her through. The gesture, pure politeness on Martin's part, was so reminiscent of Matt that it took Kitty a few moments on the street to even breathe again. Luckily, conversation wasn't required until he led her into The Sisters Café and seated her at a corner table near the front window. "Need to keep an eye on things," he explained taking his own seat with his back to the wall, and Kitty just nodded. She'd lived a lot of years sitting where Matt could keep an eye on things.

Kitty spread her napkin in her lap and sipped coffee from the large flowered cup that had been placed before her. Then she turned her full attention to the coffee and drank again. "This is _good_ , Pick!"

Her companion grinned. "Yep. Gordon sisters opened this place last fall, and it's getting' a reputation as the best food in town. Certainly the best coffee."

Kitty looked around the cheerful, crowded room, but didn't see either a printed menu or a chalkboard. A youngish woman came up to the table and asked what they would like. "What do you have?" Kitty asked.

Clearly this was a common question, because the answer was polite but smoothly pat. "We only serve breakfast, miss, and Mom or my sisters can make pretty much anything you've a mind to eat – American or Mex. It's fifteen cents for whatever you have, unless you want a steak, and then it's two bits."

Kitty asked for bread and jam, grits, and some cream for her coffee. Pick ordered considerably more. Fifteen cents seemed a lot for a small breakfast like her own, but she figured they balanced it with the larger meals. After she bit into one of the warm, slightly sweet, bread rolls that the waitress brought she decided even a small meal was worth the price if it was this good. "How come we can't get food like this in Dodge?" she asked spooning thick, yellow cream into her coffee.

"Couldn't get it in Pueblo until the Gordon's came to town." Pick answered, his mouth half full of bacon. "There's four of them girls and their ma runnin' this place and a couple more kids at home."

"And it's only open for breakfast?"

"Yep, they close just before the noon whistle blows. People have asked them to stay open for lunch at least, but they just say they have their own things to do in the afternoon."

After she finished her grits – thick, hot, and running with butter – and the waitress had poured her a second cup of coffee, Kitty sat back and asked, "What's going to happen with Mr. Solomon, Pick. You gonna get in trouble for tossin' him in jail?"

"I am not," he told her forthrightly. "Pueblo's a growin' town, Kitty. We're over ten thousand people now. Things used to be rougher – cattle, cowboys, Indians now and again – but people knew how to behave. These days, we get fellas like Solomon comin' in from back East – or from California – and thinking they can rule the roost." Martin shook his head over his coffee. "Used to be a man's word was his bond, and he'd treat a woman right whether he was proposing marriage or just walkin' her upstairs at a saloon. That's changin' and I don't like it."

"You plannin' to leave the badge, Pick?" Kitty asked.

The man across from her shook his head. "Not for a few more years. And not as long as they keep electing me." Kitty set her mouth not to grin, and took another sip of coffee. She'd heard a lot about 'a few more years'. "Now about Solomon. I know you don't want to prefer charges, and I know you don't want a trial, but I'm pretty sure it won't come to that. Man's been in a cell with three drunks most of the night. My deputies let those three out at sunup, but they haven't had time to clean the cell yet."

Kitty grimaced. "Three?"

"Started out with just one, but the town was lively last night and we were crowded." Martin commented laconically. He looked up directly into Kitty's eyes. "I'm going to ask our local fellas on the railroad board to send him back where he came from, Kitty. I don't want his kind in Pueblo for all his money. And he may well be happy to go after last night, but if he's not, well, honey, I need your help. Need to be able to at least say that he'll be charged with assault if he stays."

"Pick, I…"

"Now just hold on a minute, Kitty. You know how to take care of yourself, and that's a good thing. But what if it was some little local gal." He gestured with his head towards the pretty waitress laughing with a couple of cowboys across the room. "Or even some sweet thing from over at the Follies. Stella Gordon would likely just suffer. Might not even tell her mother. For sure wouldn't call the law. A dancer or a saloon girl? She'd suffer too, but rack it up as part of the job. I don't want that in my town. I want him gone, and I need your help."

Kitty stared into her cup for a while, and Martin just watched the street. Finally she sighed. "You've got me in a bind, Pick. I don't even know where I'm going to be living a month from now, but you go ahead and tell them I'll press charges for assault if you need to. I'll back your play."

He reached over to briefly grip her hands on the cup. "You been through a lot, Kitty. I'll do my best to see you don't go through more, but you understand this better than most. A man like Solomon's different from those Dog Soldiers, but he can do a lot of damage." Kitty's eyes jolted upwards and widened. Not many men, or women for that matter, would mention Bonner's mob to her, apparently this old lawman was one of the few with enough guts and enough understanding to do so. She nodded slowly.

The sheriff stood and picked up his hat. He dropped thirty five cents in change on the table. "You sit as long as you like, Kitty. The Gordons keep this table open for me and my people." He took a couple of steps towards the door and then turned back, smirking a little. "James Solomon told me you didn't know how to play poker."

Kitty regarded him in disbelief. "Say _what_?"

"Said no woman could."

That rankled. "A message to Doc Adams in Dodge will always reach me, Pick. You call on me for anything you need."

She sat for a few more leisurely minutes enjoying the sights and smells of good home-cooked food and then walked herself over to the station. She checked on her luggage and sat on a bench out on the platform enjoying the cool morning. The Santa Fe train for Topeka and points east chugged wearily into the station about nine-thirty, and she boarded as soon as the porters had things cleaned up. No private compartment this time. She sat in the first-class lounge car and watched the miles roll by. Rocky Ford, La Junta, Lamar, and they were out of Colorado and into Kansas.

The train scooted right along. Everything looked level but she knew it was just a little downhill all the way, and that let the train work up to nearly forty miles an hour. She thought about that. Thought about the years she'd ridden across these very plains on a stagecoach. Syracuse, Lakin, Garden City – Kansas rolled by. She thought about the stagecoach robbery ten years ago that left two men dead and her and Hope Farmer alone on the dust-dry plains to walk to Garden City. If she never took a stage again in her life, it would be too soon. The train stopped briefly in Cimmaron to let a few passengers off and take on a few more.

Twenty miles to Dodge. That had been another stagecoach ride, and another robbery, when all the passengers had been held for ransom twenty miles north of Dodge City – penned in a corral like animals. She shook her head, but began gathering her things together. She was almost home. And Matt would be waiting.

He wasn't. She stepped down off the train at the Dodge City depot and looked around for her tall cowboy, and then for a short, rumpled doctor. All she saw was a well-dressed older woman who walked up to give her a brief hug.

"Hannah? Where's Matt?"

"Don't you worry, honey, he's not hurt. But he's not here."


	12. Chapter 12

"Where is he, Hannah?" Kitty asked between fear and anger.

"He's at a trial in Larned. How about we head over to the Long Branch, or the Dodge House, and I'll tell you about it."

"No, I think I'd rather take it all in right here. That way I can just get back on the train if I decide to leave."

Hannah pursed her lips. "That's not a very charitable attitude, Kitty. It's really not his fault this time."

"Oh?"

"No." Hannah told her bluntly. "They're trying a man for robbery and murder today in Larned. One of the last men Matt brought in before he gave up his badge. Matt told them he couldn't be there for the trial, so the judge sent him a subpoena."

"Judge Brooker just wouldn't do that, Hannah." Kitty contested.

"Well, seems like there's a lot of retirement going on in Kansas these days, Kitty. Judge Brooker's not on the bench any more. And Judge Stark has been heard to make a number of comments that have rubbed our local lawmen the wrong way. He's not getting the cooperation he wants, and he decided to take on Matt Dillon to make an example." Hannah hauled herself over to a bench in the shade and sat down. "You may not be tired, honey, but I am."

Kitty seated herself beside the big woman. "Go on."

"Judge Stark sent a bailiff out to Dodge two days ago to be sure Matt made it to the trial – under arrest if need be."

This all seemed unreal. Kitty wondered if it were someone's idea of a joke. "Last time they did that the judge sent Wild Bill Hickok out from Abilene. And it was Matt that was charged with murder. Who'd they send this time?" she asked, "Bill's dead, the Earps are all gone, and John Slaughter's down in Texas."

Hannah let out a great, thumping gust of laughter. "They sent a cocky little man in a policeman's uniform – and he wasn't even carrying a gun. The marshal has him penned up over at the jail."

"Matt arrested him?"

"No, Marshal O'Brian did. Seems he was drunk and disorderly over at the Lady Gay last night. I think a few of the girls there had more than a little to do with arranging that, but there were enough witnesses that Newly didn't have any trouble finding solid citizens to file complaints."

Kitty leaned back against the wall of the building. "Let me see if I've got this straight. The new judge sent a policeman to escort Matt..."

" _and_ Festus," Hannah interrupted.

"Matt _and_ Festus back to Larned for a trial. But the girls at the Lady Gay got him drunk and egged him on and Newly arrested him. Then Matt…" she hesitated a moment for Hannah to chime in, "and Festus" before continuing "headed off for Larned for the trial anyhow." She let out a huff of breath. "And they won't be back for another two days."

Hannah shook her head. "You were going along fine until you got to the last part. They'll be back this evening."

"It's a full day's ride to Larned, Hannah," Kitty said wrinkling her brow.

"Which is one reason they took the train out this morning. It's only a little more than an hour away on the Santa Fe."

"And what was the other reason?" Kitty countered.

"Matt had to put Buck down last week. He was riding out to the Packard place, and Buck put his leg in a rabbit hole. Broke it clean through."

"Oh, damn." Kitty said, her eyes filling with tears. She wasn't sure if they were for herself, for Matt, or for the big buckskin who had seen him through so many tight times.

They sat quiet in the afternoon heat for a while. Hannah handed her a clean handkerchief and Kitty wiped her eyes. "Where's Doc?" she said eventually.

"Baby. Out north of town. He took his new partner with him." Hannah replied.

"And Newly?"

"I think he's scared of you, Kitty. He's hiding over at his office."

It took her a few more minutes, but she finally got the words out. "It's not like this is unusual, Hannah, but somehow I thought that just this _one_ time…"

"I know you did, honey. And if it's worth anything to you, I'm pretty sure Matt feels the same way." She stopped then, but when Kitty didn't comment, she went on. "But I don't."

Kitty looked over at her. She was still twisting the damp handkerchief in her hands, but she raised her eyebrows in query. "Why not?"

"I know he's not been a dependable source of company for you, Kitty, but mostly he's been there when you really needed him. He's gone after you and found you when you were lost, or captured, or in trouble." She waved her hand to shoo away Kitty's wide-eyed look. "Oh, I've heard all the stories - you have to remember I've been here in Dodge the last eight months. Watching him bleed." She reached over to take Kitty's hand. "No, not that way, honey, although he's shed some blood here and there, but watching his soul bleed out from inside him. You're the one who's been gone about your own business this time, Kitty, not him. I'm not saying it wasn't necessary, any more than I'd say what he did today wasn't necessary, but you were the one who left this time. And until last week, well, I'm not sure he really thought you were coming back."

"He never said that, Hannah. He's been writin' me every week since I left, but he never once told me that."

"No, I wouldn't think he would."

Kitty pulled herself to her feet. "I need a drink. You in? I'm buyin'."

"I thought you'd never ask!"

OoOoOoOoO

They drank at the Long Branch and word moved quickly around town, one person to another, "Miss Kitty's back!" "Miss Kitty's over at the Long Branch." "It's Miss Kitty, she came in on the train. She's here right now." Some folks stopped for a word, others just looked in at the doorway then went about their business with a nod and a smile.

About five Kitty told Hannah she was heading over to the Dodge House for a wash and a change. "Good idea. I had the barmen take over the trunks of clothes you left here." She looked speculatively at Kitty, "But I don't think there's much that will fit you anymore. You're skinny as a rail, honey. You need fattening up. Didn't they feed you out in California?"

Kitty sighed. She'd been expecting that since she first arrived and knew that Doc wouldn't leave the topic alone once he started on it. "It's a long story, Hannah. We'll talk about it later. I've got one nice gown in my valise, and I think some of the others can be taken in. I don't know if I'll need them, though."

"Oh, why not?"

"Depends on what Matt and I decide to do, Hannah. If I'm not running a saloon then most of those clothes, well, I wouldn't have a use for them."

Her partner looked up sharply. "You going to sell out to me, Kitty?"

 _Might as well tell her now as later_ , Kitty thought. "Yes, Hannah, I am. If you have the money and if you still want to buy me out, I'll let you."

"Well, hallelujah! I've been wondering since Doc said you were on your way back if you were going to toss me out the door and take over! We'll settle the money part of it tomorrow, and any of those gowns you don't want, you just let me know and I'll give you a fair price for them for my girls. You've got good taste and bought good fabric."

She smiled. "I'll just throw the dresses into the pot with the rest of the saloon, Hannah. There's a few I want to keep, but most of them I'll never wear again. I've got clothes in Stockton that Alice will send on when I tell her where I'm settling."

"And where will that be?"

"I don't know, Hannah. Right now, I just don't know."

OoOoOoO

The Dodge house looked much the same on the surface, but it was a far cry from the tatterdemalion road house with pretensions of grandeur that it had been when she first came to Dodge. For one thing, it now had real plumbing rather than the small adjoining dressing rooms with washstands and chamber pots that had been a fixture for so many years. She was in a large room at the end of the back hall. The windows looked out over the alley and stables beyond, but it would certainly be quieter than one of the front rooms. The brass bed wasn't as big as her old one at the Long Branch, but it seemed pretty sturdy. She bounced on it a few times just to be sure. Her trunks crowded things a little, but she'd sort them out tomorrow.

Kitty washed and put on her new blue silk. Service was better at the Dodge House than it used to be, too. Someone had unpacked her valises and hung up the dresses. She was sitting at the dressing table trying to see just how little powder and lip rouge she could make do with when a quick double knock sounded at the door.

"Who is it?" she called out, quickly blotting her lips on a hankie.

"It's Newly, Miss Kitty."

She opened the door and the two old friends took a long look at each other. He'd grown a long moustache in her absence. His once smooth face no longer looked quite as youthful, and the badge on his chest added weight to her heart. "Well now, don't you look mighty fine, Marshal O'Brian," she greeted him.

He kissed her cheek and then held her back from him, hands settled firmly on her waist. "You look wondeiful, Miss Kitty," he said sincerely, and then stopped with a frown.

"Oh, go ahead and say it, Newly. I know what I'm in for."

"You look like you've lost weight. Did you have a hard time out there in California? People not treating you right?"

"People treated me just fine, Newly, but things were a little different out there. And I missed Dodge so much, maybe I just didn't eat right. Now. How long have you been cultivating that handlebar?"

He ran a hand down one side in what she was pretty sure was already becoming a habitual gesture. "Matt and I talked about it. About how my face looked younger than I really was, and how people didn't always take me seriously. The moustache helps – and I like it. And there's this." He held out the hat in his hand for her inspection. Instead of the domed white Stetson that he'd worn before, this one was a little smaller in a neat black felt with a braided silver band.

Kitty nodded. Her hands touched the dark leather gunbelt and then moved up to run lightly over the badge on his chest. "You'll do fine, Newly. Mighty fine." She turned back to the dressing table to pick up her reticule. "You come to take me to dinner?" she asked.

"No, ma'am. I came to walk you to the depot. The six eighteen from Topeka should be along in just a few minutes, and I thought you'd want to be there to meet Matt and Festus."

Kitty was out the door in a flash leaving a beaming marshal to lock up and follow her down the hall.

OoOoOoOoO

The train was almost on time, and Kitty thought her heart would burst as the brakes screeched to a stop alongside the platform. The first figure out the door was the tall cowboy she'd been looking for since her journey began. Matt's broad smile mirrored her own. He slipped an arm around her waist pulling her into a quick embrace and then leaving her curved against his side while he lowered his face to kiss her briefly. It wasn't much, all told, but it was the most public display of affection he'd ever shown her in front of the watching eyes of Dodge City.

"Hello, Kitty."

"Hello, Matt."

"Did you miss me?"

She lifted a radiant face to give his cheek one more quick peck. "Not a bit."

"Wall, I done missed ya, Miss Kitty," Festus spoke up from beside her. "And I'd like to be givin' you a hug and a kiss too iffin Matthew would stop hoggin' you all to hisself." Matt released her long enough for Festus to accomplish this objective, but then tucked her hand into his arm and held it there while the four of them strolled back down the street to the Long Branch.

The crowd was good that night – mostly locals – and everyone wanted to buy the marshal and his lady a drink. Kitty declined whiskey after the first, and sipped at her beer often enough to make it seem like she was joining in the drinking while still managing not to need a refill. It was a skill she'd become expert at over the years. Mostly she just sat grinning and staring at Matt, who responded in kind.

Things had begun to settle down when Doc finally came trundling in about eight. Kitty flew from her seat and hugged him hard. He grumbled a bit, just for show, but returned the hug with tight arms before stepping back to look at her while still laying little pats on her arm and shoulder. "Well just look at you! What happened to you? You going into a decline, Kitty? You don't look healthy at all, young lady."

She burst out laughing. "I knew you'd say that, Doc. Just knew you would. But seriously, I _am_ fine. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."

"You betcha you will. You come on up to my office in the morning and let me figure out what's wrong with you. I've got a new tonic that will plump you out some in no time." He ran a hand over his lower face and then pulled forward the sandy-haired, thirtyish man who'd been watching the proceedings with interest while holding Doc's medical bag. "This is Michael O'Halleran, Kitty. Doctor Michael O'Halleran. I told you I was getting myself a partner, and I did. Mike, this is Kitty Russell."

Kitty extended a hand to the man. "I'm pleased to know you, Doctor O'Halleran. And Dodge City is certainly glad to have you here."

O'Halleran took the hand and shook it warmly. "I've only been here a week, Miss Russell, but I've heard a lot about you. It's pleased I am to meet you."

Someone handed both men drinks. Doc tossed his off and then took the black bag from his new partner. "I'm going to bed, Kitty. It's good to have you back where you belong." He turned to the younger man. "You're on call tonight, Mike. I'll put up the sign telling anyone who needs help to go find you at Ma Smalley's."

"Yes, sir. And I'll take my leave as well. Good night, Miss Russell." He swallowed his drink, set the glass on a table, and followed Doc out the batwing doors.

Kitty drifted back to the table where Matt was waiting for her. He rose and held her chair for her then settled beside her with a slight frown. "Is Doc right, Kitty? Have you lost weight?"

"Can't you tell, Matt?" she asked curiously. "Don't I look different?"

"I like that blue dress, Kitty. It's the same blue as your eyes." His own eyes wandered over her figure, lingering a little on the low bodice. "But no, I can't say as you look any different. You've always been the most beautiful woman I ever knew."

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment, Matt, or to ask you if you need glasses."

"Some things have changed, Kitty," he told her, and took her left hand in his right with a surprisingly strong grip, "But I can see as well as ever." He didn't let go of her hand and they sat there watching the room for a little, but they were no longer the center of attention.

"Well, Matt, I'm not the owner here anymore, and I don't have to wait for the saloon to close before I go to bed, and you're not the marshal anymore so you don't have late rounds to make. How about you walk me back to the Dodge House?"

"By golly, Kitty, that's the best idea I've heard all day." Matt stood and helped her up, tucking her arm neatly into the crook of his arm yet again. It was cooler now outside and they walked slowly down the boardwalk towards the hotel. Neither quite seemed to know what to say.

Howie handed her the key to her room and wished her a good night, and Matt guided her up the stairs and down the hall. He stopped in the empty hallway by her door and Kitty gave him her key. He opened the door for her but made no further move – standing next to her hat in hand.

Kitty waited a moment or two and then looked curiously up at him. "You've been walkin' through my bedroom door for nearly twenty years, Matt. You feel like all of the sudden you need a special invitation?"

"Maybe I do, Kitty," he replied quite seriously. "You've been gone a long time. I don't want to just presume that we'll take up where we left off."

Her sparkling blue eyes met his as she took his hand and drew him into the room. "Come to bed, Matt," she said softly. "Whatever else we need to work out, let's do that first."

He closed the door behind them, turned the key in the lock, and took her into his arms. One hand came up to tangle in her hair. He lifted her mouth to his for the kiss he'd wanted to give her that evening at the station, then led her slowly toward the bed.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

Kitty woke to the sound of thunder. The room was dark, but she could see Matt silhouetted against the window in the moonlight. A flash of lightning set him in stark relief for a moment and she almost purred at the stern beauty of that image. Matt might be nearly fifty but the tall, muscled lines of his body were still stirring to her. He closed the window with a soft thump and turned back towards the bed.

"I didn't mean to wake you, Kitty."

"You okay?"

"Mostly. I get cramps in my legs sometimes and have to stand up for a bit. Thought I'd close the window before the rain started."

Another flash of lightning and a much closer roll of thunder heralded the first heavy drops of rain on the roof. "You ready to come back to bed, Matt? Show me where the cramp is and I'll see if I can help." It was something she had done for years without much thought. It was a little thing, usually, but she hadn't thought about the fact that with her gone there would be no one else to massage the cramped flesh. It was a hard thing to do for yourself.

Matt sat down facing the head of the bed with one long leg stretched out in front of him. Kitty found the knot in his calf and kneaded the muscle with strong, sure hands. As she felt the tension smooth out and relax, her hands moved up to stroke his thighs and the taut flatness of his belly - and other hard muscles.

He chuckled but caught up her hands none the less. "We need to talk, Kitty."

"Talking's overrated." She ran her thumb up the inside of his wrist into his palm and pushed small, firm circles into the center of his hand.

"I need to know where we're going, Kitty. I know I said I'd go anywhere you wanted, but I may have to set a condition on that now."

"Oh?"

"Anywhere but Kansas."

"Oh." She stopped rubbing his hand and drew herself up against the pillows. "I wasn't thinking of Kansas, Matt, but why don't you tell me about that."

"They want me to run for governor."

"And they sent a policeman to arrest you so they could tell you that?"

"I'd been approached before, and I told them no. Judge Stark had a meeting set up with some of the party leaders because he figured I would be there in Larned for the trial, and they could talk me into it. So he felt he had to produce me."

Kitty snorted. "You'd think they'd be smart enough not to poke the bear if they want him to dance."

Matt's voice in the darkness was very dry. "Honey, I'm pretty sure they don't think I'm smart enough to even notice."

"Oh, Matt! No! They can't want you for governor if they think…"

"That I'm a big lug with a fast gun and a reputation for honesty," Matt finished for her. "Yes, they clearly do. Today, well, today…" He stopped.

"Spit it out, Matt. We've got to stop hiding things from each other."

"Today they told me that the reason they wanted to nominate me now was that I'd severed my relationship – those were Stark's words, 'severed my relationship' – with that saloon woman I'd been linked with over the years and could marry some respectable young thing they had picked out for me. I was told that it's very important for a governor to have a proper wife to be his hostess."

Kitty was sitting up now in the center of the bed, and she would have pulled her hands away if Matt had let her. But he did not. "And I told them each and every one to go to hell, and then walked out. Festus and I spent the time waiting for the next train in the sleaziest saloon I could find down by the tracks." Matt stretched out on the bed beside her and guided her into his arms. "Kitty, I have got to get out of Kansas."

"You don't want to be governor?" She asked it in a small voice.

"I do not."

They lay for a while, skin to skin, hands stroking each other lightly. "This is what I want, Kitty. I want to be with you every day and every night. I don't want anyone else orderin' my time and my actions ever again." He raised her face for a warm kiss. "You want to get married, Kitty?"

"I want to be with you, Matt. Getting married? We can do that if you want – if you think it will help. And…"

"And…?"

"And it would sure make Doc happy."

They both laughed a little at that. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Justice of the Peace opens at nine. Think you can be up and dressed by then?"

She wriggled away from him a little and sat up facing him. Her hands moved softly on the skin of his thighs but didn't go any higher. "I can, Matt. That's one of the changes that happened this year. I go to bed early and I get up pretty early too."

"How'd that happen, Kitty?" His voice was genuinely curious.

"That's what ladies do, Matt. And they do it because there's nothin' to _do_ in the evening. I spent more than twenty years stayin' up late in a barroom – and then gettin' up at noon. I'm done with that. Found out I kind of like to see what's happenin' in the world while it's still fresh."

"So you're going to sell the Long Branch?"

"I am. Hannah's just waiting to buy me out."

"Then what do we do, Kitty?"

"That's what we have to decide."

His hands came up to fondle her breasts and he pulled her down for a long kiss. "Right this minute?" he asked.

A while later when he rolled off of her and they lay, wet and sticky, tangled with each other and the sheets, Kitty asked, "You still believe in God, Matt?"

"You know I do, Kitty. Maybe not the way I did when I was younger, but I couldn't have done this job for so long if hadn't thought there was right and wrong and an order to things."

"I don't," she said. He just kept running his hand up and down her back. They'd had this discussion before. Not often, but enough. "I believe in poker, though. I believe in knowing the odds and playing the hand you're dealt. That's what makes me so mad when men cheat at cards. It's like they're cowards that don't have enough gumption to make do with what they've got and then try again."

"I think we really believe in the same thing, Kitty. We just call it by different names. You ready to go to sleep?"

She yawned and settled herself comfortably against him with her head pillowed on his chest.

"You won't leave me?"

"Never again."


	14. Chapter 14

A knock on the door interrupted Kitty's snooze and had Matt reaching for the gun he'd hung from the bedpost. The room was flooded with early light. "It's just someone with coffee, Matt. I told them to bring it about eight."

She slipped on a robe and knotted it firmly then opened the door and accepted a tray. She looked around for a place to set it, and it ended up on top of one of her trunks. Matt rose and padded over to the washroom, shutting the door behind him. When he returned, Kitty had two cups poured. He pulled on his trousers and set two chairs over by the trunk.

"You do get up early now, dontcha?" he asked when she returned from the washroom.

"Yep. And the earlier I get up the more I need my coffee."

"You tell'em to bring two cups?"

"Nope."

"Somebody's pretty smart then."

Kitty snorted. "They'd publish it in the newspaper if they didn't think everybody already knew."

They sipped their coffee in peace for a few minutes. Matt went to the window and pulled up the sash letting in a breath of cool morning air. He sat back down with his long legs extended in front of him and crossed at the ankle. It was clear he was waiting.

"Okay, Matt, here's what I've come up with," Kitty said at last. "All my life I wanted to be a lady – a real lady. Somehow I thought that if I had a chance to do that, well, that everything would change for the better. This last year in California, I got to do that. Thad introduced me as his Aunt Kitty and everyone took that at face value. I was his mother's sister, and he was a decent, up-and-coming young attorney with a rich, pretty wife. They knew just where I fit in and just how to treat me." Matt nodded but didn't interrupt. She stopped for a drink of coffee. It wasn't nearly as good as the Gordon sisters' coffee yesterday in Pueblo. "And you know what, Matt? I found I didn't like it very much at all."

"What didn't you like, Kitty? Was it taking care of Alice?"

"No, Alice was a sweetheart, even sick as she was. But she did sleep a lot and there was nothing for me to _do_. She had a housekeeper who did the cleaning and the shopping and most of the cooking. Ladies came over to visit, but they just talked about their children and their husbands, and their churches. Sometimes I wanted so bad to have a drink and play a few hands of cards with someone who had some real conversation that I almost cried." She had cried. More than once. But she wasn't going to tell Matt about that. "I don't know what I can say to make you understand. Let me try this. Every evening after dinner, Thad would come sit in Alice's room and read the paper to us."

"Read the paper to you? The newspaper?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I wondered that myself, at first. For one thing there didn't seem to be anything interesting at all going on. I figured he was just trying to be nice and keep Alice company until she went to sleep. Then one morning he left the paper on the breakfast table. Usually he carried it back to his office with him. And I read it."

"Kitty you've been reading the newspaper for years, what's this about?"

"Matt, he was _editing_ it. He was only reading us the parts that he thought ladies should hear. Nothing about bank robberies or murder trials. Nothing about the election. Nothing that would _upset_ us."

"Oh."

"My whole time in California was like that. And it made me see that whatever we decide to do, I don't want to give up being the person I am to be the lady someone else expects me to be."

Matt let that sink in for a while, and held his cup out for more coffee. Eventually he said, "Kitty, I don't think I'd ever ask you to be anyone other than who you are, but if I did, you could light into me and knock some sense into my head."

She smiled at him warmly, "You'd better just bet I would, cowboy!" She stood up and took a turn around the crowded room. "What I'm tryin' to say, Matt, is that I didn't come up with a clear idea of what I wanted to do. What I came up with is what I _don't_ want to do."

"That's a place to start, Kitty. What don't you want to do?"

"I don't want to live in a big city. I like being a big fish in a little pond. I don't want to go to New Orleans, or Saint Louis, or San Francisco." He met her eyes and she nodded. She could see that he had feared that but been willing to accept a move to the city for her sake. "But there are things that I _do_ want. I want running water and flush toilets and radiators with steam heat. I want people around me that won't be shocked if I go into a saloon and buy a drink, or if I gamble some, or if I don't go to church. So I feel like I need to stay out west – where people are more open. And I think staying on the rail lines is important too – because it means we can move around if we need to and we can pretty much order anything we want from California or from back East without waiting for a stagecoach to deliver it. And that's important because I want to run a business. I'm not exactly sure what yet, although I have a few ideas, but I know I want something to keep me busy and let me meet folks."

Matt stood and started pulling together his clothes. They were distributed fairly widely across the room. Kitty sat at the dressing table and brushed out her hair and then pinned it up. Other than her corset, she had clean clothes to change into, and she wasn't about to go searching around on her hands and knees behind the trunks for an odd sock the way Matt was. He finished dressing and sat watching her with pleasure as she put on her clothes. She'd pulled a number of skirts and shirtwaists out of her oldest trunks yesterday afternoon and found they fitted fairly well.

"So. California?"

"Too hot, and when it's not too hot it's raining."

"If California's too hot, then Texas, and New Mexico, and Arizona are right out. Montana? It would be nice to be closer to Frank Reardon again."

"Yes it would," Kitty agreed, "But I think Montana and the Dakotas are too cold."

"Nebraska?"

"Too much like Kansas."

"Well unless you want to live in the desert, that pretty much leaves Colorado and Wyoming."

"That's what I was thinking. I liked Pueblo. Liked seeing Pick Martin again. Even if I did have to shoot a man."

"You shot a man in Pueblo?" And that led to a discussion of her adventure.

"Sounds like Pick handled that pretty well. He's a sound man." Matt hesitated and then went on, "He was one of the lawmen who came to Bonner's hanging."

She looked up at him curiously. "I knew you went, Matt. And Newly and Festus. Guess I wasn't enough interested at that point to get the details. I just wanted to know he was dead."

Matt stood at the window and looked out at the alley as he spoke. "I didn't expect anyone else to be there, but there were a couple dozen lawmen, and some of the officers from Fort Dodge and Fort Leavenworth. The soldiers, they formed a rank, and then the lawmen - sheriffs and deputies and marshals from all over - they formed a rank too, all around me. Nobody said a word, they just stood and watched. After, they took me out and got me drunker than I'd been in a dozen years. Then Festus and Newly got me up on Buck and we started home."

Kitty, dressed now, came and wrapped her arms around him from behind. "Hannah told me about Buck, Matt. I'm sorry. He was the third one, wasn't he?"

"Fourth. Third since I came to Dodge. I think I'm due for a change. I won't buy another buckskin. I was waiting to hear where we were going before I bought another horse at all."

"Because what use would a saddle horse be in New Orleans?"

Matt turned and took her in his arms. "I thought that maybe if we settled somewhere that did that kind of business, that I might like to run a little stable. Buy and sell horses. Breed some too. You can do that living in town, especially a town with a railroad."

"Pueblo?" she suggested.

He shook his head sadly. "I'd like that, honey, but it's too close to home. Too many people know me – know us."

Kitty cocked her head up at him, "You going to change your name?"

"I've thought about that," he replied seriously. "I'm for sure going to change yours."

"You want to do that before or after breakfast?" she asked.

"How about we get married first, and then get Doc to join us for breakfast? If we do it right we can get him to blow hot coffee out through his nose."

She stepped back and smacked his chest with an open hand. "Are you _ever_ gonna grow up, Matt Dillon?"

"I was hopin' not to," he said plaintively. "You ready?"

She pinned a small neat hat over her curls and Matt fastened on his gun belt and tied it down. "I am. Let's go."

So they did.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

Laramie, Wyoming in 1892 was a growing railroad and mining town of a little over six thousand residents. It had a public library, a high school, and an opera house - as well as halls runs by the Elks, the Moose, the Masons, and the Odd Fellows. The hunting and fishing were good, the streets were mostly paved, and there were more saloons, gambling halls, and houses of pleasure than there were churches – but it was a close contest.

Early in the summer of that year, two women opened a small restaurant just off of Third and Grand. The large glass bow window at the front announced in elegant scrolled letters that it was the G &R Breakfast Café. The food was good, the coffee marvelous, and the prices just a shade higher than reasonable. No men worked in the café but that new fella, Buck Dillard, who had started up a horse trading business over by the stockyards at the north edge of town was a frequent visitor. Some folks said he was married to one of the owners, and this seemed to be true because he was certainly living in her comfortable quarters above the restaurant. After a while, Miss Katy started wearing a wedding ring, but when people tried calling her Mrs. Dillard she told them that was really too formal and she like Katy better.

Now Buck Dillard was about the tallest man anyone had seen in Wyoming in a long time. He started out with an old barn on four acres. Used to be the Meyers place, but the house burned down some years past. Dillard didn't seem interested in a house, but he repaired the barn nice and tight, fenced in the whole lot, and built three corrals and a couple of little paddocks. Built windmills too, and used the water to keep everything green – which was hard work most of the year in southern Wyoming. It took a while for people to get used to him, but he started out with a few good horses and bought and sold enough horseflesh that it came to be known that his eye and his word were both good.

If you wanted a good horse, or wanted your mare bred to a good stud, you could seek out Dillard in the little office he built for himself in a corner of the barn - just a single room, heated by an old woodstove with a coffee pot sitting on it. There was a desk in the corner with an oversized wooden chair where Dillard did his paperwork, and a plain deal table in the middle of the room where folks could sit and chat and even play a game of cards or checkers. There was a small dresser behind the door with a pitcher and a washbasin, and in the back corner was a rough cot covered with an old army blanket. It wasn't fancy, but quite a few cowboys had found it a pleasant haven for a night or even a week or two when no one would hire them on right away. One middlin' fella with noisy spurs showed up fairly often riding a mule. Sometimes he brought Dillard horses – sometimes he didn't.

But Dillard and Miss Katy were small potatoes next to the fact that a real college-educated doctor moved to town that fall. Doctor Galen Adams, late of Kansas, said that he was retired, but he opened a small surgery on 2nd Street just north of Grand and lived in three rooms behind the office. He didn't set out to look for business, but he held office hours in the afternoon most days. Mornings he went fishing. There were two other, younger, doctors in town but the three men seemed to get on amicably – sharing opinions, journals, and sometimes patients.

Doctoring's important, and a good horseman can always do business, but Miss Katy and Miss Stella they surely did make good coffee.


	16. Chapter 16

Katy sat in the rocking chair next to the fireplace with the baby in her arms. There were radiators keeping the chill off the room, but she and Buck both liked a wood fire. She stroked the tiny cheek and the child turned his face towards her bosom. She unbuttoned the front of her nightgown and let him latch on to her breast, sucking greedily. She hoped that afterwards he would go back to sleep until morning.

Buck came into the room and stirred up the fire a little. "You didn't need to get up," she told him.

He sat down in the chair across from her. "I like to watch. Thought I'd just keep you company."

She nodded her assent, acknowledging her husband's endless fascination with seeing her nurse their child. "I talked to Doc today."

He grinned. "So did I."

She turned the baby and moved him to the other breast. "Well, I was thinkin', since you're already awake, if he goes to sleep after…"

His grin widened and he settled back in his chair to wait his turn.

The End


End file.
